T with Honey

Aimee from The Mother Load wrote a top 10 list of things she has learned since she became a mother. I thought it was such a great idea I had to come up with my own list. These are all things that Princess taught me by making me her mother.

Before she came along:

• I didn’t know that under most circumstances you should NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!
• I didn’t know that my body can function, although just barely, on very little sleep stolen in little chunks; an hour here, a few more over there.
• I didn’t know that the adult female brain is capable of keeping track of where every single one of her child’s toys are hiding or where her purse, badge, cell phone, keys and the tax bill are located but not both.
• I didn’t know that I would be willing to remain hungry or try to sneak in eating those cookies while Princess is in the other room just so I don’t have to answer the question ‘Mom, may I have some too?’
• I didn’t know that taking a shower without an interruption or an audience is a luxury.
• I didn’t know that the best medicine for minor bumps, cuts and scrapes is a kiss and a character Band-Aid.
• I didn’t know that taking 3 breaths per second is a reason to go straight to the emergency room. Do not call your pediatrician and schedule an appointment for later that day.
• I didn’t know that seeing the phone number for your child’s day care on caller ID while you’re at work is never a good thing.
• I didn’t know that silence is a sure sign that your child is getting into trouble.
• I didn’t know that hearing my child use the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ would make me feel so proud.
• I didn’t know that I could be so much like my mother and her mother and my dad’s mother yet still have my own unique style of parenting.
• I didn’t know that the words “I love you, Mommy” along with kisses and hugs can brighten the darkest, gloomiest day.

Yesterday I was feeling rather blue until I pulled one of these out of my work bag for a late afternoon snack.

They are soooo cute!  It just brightened my afternoon right up.

I made these with Princess and, even though baking with her is always fun, I think she has almost as much fun decorating these as the time she got into my makeup and tried to decorate herself.

All you need to make two pretty flower cupcakes is one jelly bean, 2 marshmallows and a little bit of powdered sugar, say a teaspoon, in a bowl. I cut each jelly bean in half and let her stick it in the center of a pre-frosted cupcake (I am not brave enough to give Princess access to a bowl of frosting. We’d be lucky to have any frosting on the cupcakes!)

Then it is time to make the flower petals. Put the marshmallow so the curvy part is laying on the cutting board. With your knife parallel to the flat sides of the marshmallow cut it into thirds. Cut each of those pieces in half then dust with powdered sugar. (Wow! I should just take some pictures of how to do this. It would be so much easier. If I get a spare 10 minutes tonight I’ll try to update this post.) If you don’t have powdered sugar I guess you could use flour instead, just don’t skip this step. Skipping this step will turn a fun and creative evening in the kitchen into a frustrating nightmare as the marshmallow refused to detach from your child’s fingers and results in sticky goo everywhere but on the cupcake.

At this point you should have 6 white marshmallow flower petals which your child can arrange around the half jelly bean center.

I think this is a perfect dessert right now because April showers bring… May flowers! And who wouldn’t find these yummy on Mother’s Day?

i’m down and wondering what I want out of life

why is my body aching so much lately

my thighs are getting more thunderous as my activity level stagnates

i need to exercise but to do that i need to give something up…

do i go to the gym in the morning and give up breakfast with the family

do i work out in the afternoon and miss play time with Princess

do i exercise after Princess is in bed and forget about evening couple time with Honey

should I wear the red floor length gown to a black-tie wedding because it will cover my legs

or will I wear the dark espresso one I wore to my cousin’s wedding so I don’t have to wear a strapless bra

why does it seem that everyone else is getting pregnant and having lots of babies except for me

will we ever have another child

am i a bad mother for sticking her in day care all day

will she grow up resenting me for working full time

i’m frustrated with my mind - or should i say its lack of clear thought

do i continue working

do i want to continue in software

am i being called to music

how tight would the budget be if we give up my salary and benefits

why can’t i live on less than 8 hours of sleep every day

i just want a day where i feel rested and content

…

Or maybe Priscilla’s Maude Sybil just needs to vacate the premises!!!

Today was pajama day at day care again. Last night I got Princess dressed in her PJs. This morning she put on sock and shoes, I did her hair and she was all set to go to school. Ah. The morning routine went so much faster. If it were any other day she would have stayed in her Jasmine pajamas until tomorrow morning and there would be one less dirty outfit in the hamper at the end of the today.

However today is also the Feast of the Ascension and in my diocese it is still a Holy Day of Obligation. The only time I could go to mass was at 7PM this evening - the same time as Honey’s soccer game. This meant that if I was going to make it to church today I would have to take Princess with me. Not a problem. She’s good at church and is usually excited about going to mass and saying “Hi’ to our pastor afterward. The monkey wrench was the pajamas. There was absolutely no way I was going to show up at mass with her wearing pajamas. It turns out that there was no way she was going to let me take her to church in pajamas either. So after dinner we ran upstairs to her bedroom where she picked out one of the prettiest dresses in her closet, took off her pajamas and got dressed for church.

Dear Jesus,

I hope you appreciated Princess’s efforts to dress suitably for worshiping you and honoring your ascension into heaven. This load of laundry I offer up for you.

Love,
T

What the blazes is going on!

They’re eating the Apple Jacks and leaving the Cheerios alone.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.  At least I’m not as concerned about putting Apple Jacks into my own or Princess’s body anymore.  It’s kind of like Life cereal - if Mikey will eat it…  In this case, if the neighborhood wildlife will eat it then maybe its not as bad as I thought it might be.

So, what happened?  My hypothesis is that the animals (most likely squirrels) prefer to eat closer to the wooden post than from the cereal that is hanging free from the end of my plant hook.

Conclusion: It is true what they say. Location, location, location!

Day 2 of Operation Cereal Watch and no takers. All of the cereal is still on the pipe cleaners. I’m really starting to wonder if the animals in my neighborhood are afraid of entering my back yard. Did the fat squirrel that Screw Ball chased last year - the one that was so fat that he got stuck as he tried to jump through the chain link in an effort to escape the jaws of our Irish Setter and just barely managed to wiggle his bulk through to freedom in the nick of time - did that squirrel warn all the other animals to stay clear of our back yard? I can just picture it.

“Don’t go in there. It’s not safe. Those dogs, especially the one they call Screw Ball, they’re fast! I don’t care what kind of food those humans put out, it’s just not worth it.
Just wait until trash day. They always put their garbage cans out the night before and those go in the front yard where the dogs aren’t allowed to run free. If a few of us work together we can push the lids off and knock the cans over. There’s some yummy scraps in there!
Plus, you should see their faces the next morning! Whoo, boy! You can’t pay for that kind of entertainment. Who’s with me?”

Remember how I wanted to see if the wildlife in my area is too snooty for Apple Jacks or if they are simply too full from snacking at everyone else’s bird feeders? (If you don’t remember you can jog you’re memory by reading this post.) My inner monkey is getting the best of me. I’m curious to find out if it is the cereal that they don’t like or if they’re just scoffing at my attempt at an easy yet useful preschool craft project.

This weekend I finally remembered to buy some Cheerios and on Sunday afternoon Princess enjoyed another snack-and-craft session at our family room table. Equipped with two pipe cleaners and two bowls of cereal she made 2 bird feeders; one with Apple Jacks and one with Cheerios of the multi-grain variety.

When she couldn’t stuff any more O-shaped bits on I took them outside, hung them up and promptly took a picture so I could share this beautiful craft with you, my bloggy friends.

Operation Cereal Watch is on!

As I was looking at the private website a friend has for sharing photos and tidbits about her children I noticed the page heading. It listed her daughter’s age in months. And then it hit me. I don’t know how many months old my daughter is! I do know the precise moment of her birth (I looked at the clock as I sat back from that final push) so sure, I could sit here and do the math. But I had the sudden realization that I no longer track the exact the number of months she had been alive and outside my womb.

How did that happen?

I used to wonder when the ‘age in months’ thing stopped. And trust me when I say that I’m glad it does. Saying that I’m 388 anythings makes me feel like all of my hair should be gray instead of having just a few silver highlights mixed in with the brown. (Mom, I sorry if knowing your baby is that old causes any undue stress to your more-than-600-month old self) ‘Years’ is a much better unit for measuring the life span of a grown adult. Even better - decades. “Yes, I’ve been a live for a mere 3 decades.” Ahhh, I can feel the fine lines around my eyes disappearing already!

It turns out the switch from reporting age in ‘months’ to reporting in ‘years’ is a gradual transition. Somewhere between Princess’s second and third birthday it felt a little odd to be reporting her age in months. Once we crossed the 24-month threshold I started letting her answer. When someone would ask “How old is she?” I would turn the question over to her, partly as a way to be a good mom and let her show off her skilz. “Princess, how old are you?” On a good day she would smile and answer, “I’m two!” while holding up anywhere between one and five fingers. On a not-so-outgoing day or if it was too close to nap time Princess would immediately apply the toddler grip of death on whichever of my appendages was in closest proximity to her personage and bury her face in my legs. I would then be forced to answer for her and say something along the line of “Two and a half” or “She’s almost 3.”

Although I was verbally answering in ‘years’ I could have just as easily rattled off the number of months instead.

When she turned 3 years old all of that changed. I stopped noticing when the day of her birth comes around each month. Today I found myself wondering just how old she is… Wait. What’s today’s date? Is she still 37 months old or is she now 38 months old?

Princess, my first born. My big girl. She’s been around long enough for me to be counting in years instead of months. Before I know it she’ll be turning 29, again. Someone, help me find the rewind button!

…I’ll never know why but I sure am glad that he/she made it across instead of becoming road pizza under my tires.  That would have been a rather inauspicious way to start Earth Day.

So, T, what did you do for Earth Day?

Oh, nothing special.  I just killed one of God’s creatures by driving my natural-resource-consuming green-house-gas-spewing vehicle to work while drinking my rain-forest-killing-produced coffee.  But at least I was drinking from a reusable, metal travel mug.

Earth Day 2008 - I saved the life of a shell covered critter so he/she can eat some mosquitoes and their larvae, hopefully reducing the need to spray pesticides in order to protect us all from West Nile and EEE.

Did you do anything special to commemorate Earth Day?

I had seen a cute and simple craft on the internet that I thought would be the perfect little Saturday afternoon mommy-and-Princess activity.  It is really simple and I recommend it for anyone with a toddler or preschooler in their home.  All you need is:

1. one pipe cleaner
2. a handful of Cheerios

You are going to make a bird feeder!  All your child has to do is string the Cheerios onto the pipe cleaner.  Then hang the bird feeder outside by bending the pipe cleaner to look like the letter ‘J’ and hooking it on to a tree branch, or in our case one of the plant hangers on our deck.

Two weekends ago after her nap it was sunny outside and Princess was not fully awake.  We had about 10 minutes before we would be heading out the door to run some errands and I realized it was the perfect window for making the bird feeder.  Craft time!

I went to my craft box
where pipe cleaners of many hues
waited in their unopened packaging
for my daughter to choose

I went to my cubbard
opened the doors and rooted around
There were no boxes of Cheerios
only Apple Jacks could be found

Yup.  The only ‘O’ shaped cereal in our pantry at the time was, and still is, Apple Jacks.  I had already told Princess about our craft project - oh, what a foolish mistake! - so I figured, why not.  We would use the Apple Jacks.  The finished product looks very pretty.  Princess used mostly the ‘pink’ Os for her bird feeder, putting an occasional green one on for a splash of contrast and color.  If you think I jest you don’t know my Princess that well.  She can be very particular about colors, placement and patterns at times.  I have no idea where she could have possibly pick up that propensity - ahem!

The multitasking side of me really loved this craft.  For every 2 Os that went on the pipe cleaner one piece of cereal went into her mouth, so it not only worked as a quick craft project but served as our midafternoon snack!

I was a little worried that the squirrels would manage to unhook the pipe cleaner and steal our bird feeder but it is still there.  Along with all of the cereal. As in every single ‘O’ shaped piece of cereal that Princess carefully placed onto that pipe cleaner is still there.

A pipe cleaner full of Apple Jacks has been hanging on my deck for over a week and not one green or orange-pink ‘O’ has been nibbled on, chewed or pecked at.  If the birds and squirrels won’t touch the stuff I wonder if I should really be feeding it to my daughter.  Or eating it myself.

As an experiment I plan on buying some plain Cheerios (actually, it will be the store brand because I’m cheap like that - the Apple Jacks are the store brand variety too but if I don’t remember what they are called.  And it is more likely that everyone will know what I’m talking about if I say Apple Jacks. Or at least be able to Google it.) this week and letting Princess make another bird feeder.  Let’s see if it’s the cereal, the pipe cleaner or maybe our dogs (that’s never kept birds and squirrels away before) that is scaring those poor, starving-yet-amazingly-chubby-looking critters away.